Can’t tell if this comic just doesn’t get it or put zero thought into it. And there is several examples throughout the various series where two ships don’t align to each other.
There are several reasons why the ships would always face each other, from common courtesy to defensive posturing.
When two ships face each other its like an nonverbal way of saying “we see you” or “you have our attention”. Orientation also plays apart in this. Of course there is no real reason to orient so both ships face “up” thanks to artificial gravity, but it’s also something that could be seen as polite and etiquette as getting on the same level as the other meeting them half way.
For defensive purposes, it also makes sense to nose towards a potential threat or adversary as within star trek the shields are strongest at the front (thanks to deflectors and navigational shielding) as well as the best/most accurate sensors to get a good reading. Additionally the forward arc of the ship will likely have the most overlapping weapon arcs, especially for ships like klingon bird of preys with fixed disruptor cannons facing forwards. This posture also tends to keep primary engineering, where the reactor/warp core is situated, obscured and defended, so if the ship wants to make a swift retreat their primary means of doing so is less likely to be damaged or disabled, and if you engage an FTL retreat towards a foes rear that foe needs to turn about and reorient themsevles to give chase, giving more time for the retreating party to take evasive action and avoid further intercepts.
Also, when playing space games, I automatically roll to align my ship’s up vector with the ships I encounter, without thinking about it. So I guess human nature plays a role too.
Clearly transporters can’t compensate for relative orientation so its universal courtesy to align your ships so guests don’t transport in upside down.
Every time a person transports the transporter annihilates the universe and rebuilds it around the transportee but just a little to the left or right depending where they want to go
I always thought that it was the computer adjusting the view for the crew. I mean its not a window its a screen.
I think it’s both.
When I run into other ships in space games I usually orient myself to be head on with them. Unless I’m trying to murder them, then I try to go wherever their guns aren’t. Maybe Star Trek just skips showing that part.
I’d like to think that it is an unspoken rule among all spacefaring people, regardless of their planetary origin or biological design, to automatically reorient their ships to match the “up” direction of any other ship they are approaching.
It makes sense since (effectively) all spacefaring peoples started on a planet with gravity and well defined “up” directions. You wouldn’t interact with anyone in gravity while upside down, so as a courtesy you’d always want to be facing “up” for both your sake’s.
Technically, this only needs to be the practice of Starfleet (or even just human) navigators in order to account for 99% of what we see in Star Trek. Maybe it’s our guys who are doing all the careful orienting, and the alien of the week just comes in from whatever angle they want.
Or maybe, since Starfleet is seeing it all through the view screen rather than directly, it’s just a little image manipulation for the comfort of the viewer
I thought that it was canonical, at least in some series, that the viewscreen is a window that displays a 1x view of outside and any time they want to zoom in, or are hailed, if turns into a monitor? I swear there’s been multiple times where someone was sucked out of the bridge through it.
And there are LOTS of examples of other ships uncloaking in non aligned positions.
I like this “starfleet policy is to make a best guess and align up when approaching” - borg cube presents particular problems.
There is direction in space. Space is not a formless void there is order and structure to the universe.
The solar system is shaped like a disk. Most planets orbit and revolve to the same axis as the solar system.
When a star trek ship is seen in orbit, like the opening to TOS it is usually shown orbiting with the up of the ship facing the north of the planet, making a left turn with the planet off the port side.
Having a consistent orientation, like up=north would make sense for navigating a solar system. Federation ships in orbit are always shown rotating to face the direction of travel while in orbit. That’s not at all needed to remain in orbit, but having consistent orientation seems important to the federation.
North is subjective though and I doubt any ships are actively tracking the magnetic flux of every planet in the system
North is determined by the rotation of the planet. The sun sets in the west, and if you are facing west, north is to your right. This is true for any planet/moon and doesn’t have anything to do with magnets.
Not every planet spins in the same direction
Venus and Neptune are the only round objects that are rotating in different directions in our solar systems. The angular momentum of the proto-planetary disc is preserved in all the bodies with enough mass to preserve said angular momentum following a collision. So every solar system has an inherently “up” and “down” to it’s planetary disc with nearly all the major bodies in said system rotating in a similar fashion.
tldr: The enemy gate is down. Orientation helps because we’re just built that way, and so is most everything else.
They probably align to the orientation of the galaxy they are in. Or even the solar system.
You only have 2 orientations like that.
3, you can also treat the center as down.
Any ship traveling towards another ship would have its nose pointed towards it.
If both ships travel towards each other, their noses would be aligned, but their roll would likely be different.
That’s a bit different from what’s being shown in the comic where ships seem to have any orientation, no matter the context.
As for a galactic up/down, the galactic disc would be the obvious reference. That still leaves a 50/50 chance that two civilizations would choose the same direction as up.
Realistically (i.e., not in Star Trek), a ship traveling toward something will have its engine cone pointed towards it as it decelerates for rendezvous.
Idk, most navigation would be along or close to the ecliptic plane of the system, wouldn’t it
If you are going to and from points within a solar system, probably but not necessarily. Every transfer made between gravitational influences increases the chance that you will enter at an angle to the equatorial plane, especially if the two influences are not coplanar traveling between solar systems would likely have you entering at a significant angle. Furthermore, approaching a ship at a low velocity means slowing down as you approach them, so even if you do approach coplanar, it would be engines first and not nose first (unless star trek vessels have an ability to reverse their propulsors? I don’t know if that’s ever been shown aside from by approaching things nose first). The expanse showed this aspect of space interaction well with the flip and burn maneuvers
Starfleet ships basically maneuver like they’re weightless
massless?, which, mathematically, they probably are. Inertial Dampeners are mostly mentioned in reference to stopping Worf from smashing into all the science stations every time the ship accelerates, but if inertia isn’t affecting the ship, they can basically do whatever they want. Even a tiny amount of thrust would be enough to put them in reverse from Full Impulse. Add to this that the ships aren’t held together by their superstructures, but by their Structural Integrity Fields, and really, a Starfleet vessel could be constructed in basically any shape. They just look like they have a front and an up because humans like it that waybetween solar systems
FYI, there is only one solar system in the universe.
Source:
There are many planetary systems like ours in the universe, with planets orbiting a host star. Our planetary system is called “the solar system” because we use the word “solar” to describe things related to our star, after the Latin word for Sun, “solis.” — NASA
There is a federation standard for which way is “up” based on the plane of the galaxy.
So at least that explains why Federation ships always meet on “level ground”
as for why the romulans, klingon, and various other non federation, especially non friendly species from the other quadrants, would be oriented the same way?
Idk, maybe the progenitor race from that one single episode of tng that never showed up or was spoken of again made some kind of subliminal or genetic memories of which way up should be.
Somewhere, in Alpha Centauri, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of Leopard, there is a very important looking document titled “This Side Up”.
This reminds me of how in a lot of sci-fi universes, every planet the characters go down to has earth standard gravity. When in reality there would be a ton of variance, some planets would have 20% stronger, or weaker, or crushing.
Expeditionary Force book series was a breath of fresh air, portray space battles how they probably would play out, at such long ranges you could move your ship and avoid a directed energy weapon. The books also do a great job with there being more variety in planetary conditions too. I loved that series. The audio books are fantastic, R.C. Bray does a wonderful job!
I think many stories hand-wave this by only interacting with “M” class planets unless the story is helped by adding the additional complexity.
Does M-class include the requirement of having 1.0g (or near enough)? I didn’t know that. Does that mean the federation is only made up of planets where humans don’t look daft moving around? Or maybe it has something to do with production budgets… 🤔
Yesz M class includes having tolerable gravity. There are many things that make a class M planet, which is why they are so rare. In some sci-fi universes there are other species that populate other types of planets that are rarely interacted with because there is not direct competition or benefits.
